Tag Archives: marine

The Port Orchard to Bremerton foot ferry is a great way to avoid
driving or biking around Sinclair Inlet when you just want to get
to downtown Bremerton from south Kitsap. As a bonus, you get a few
moments on each side for sea creature viewing. You’re almost
guaranteed to see plumose anemones, giant pink stars, mussels and
barnacles on pilings and floating structures. You’re likely to see
a kelp crab and a seaweed or two.

On one occasion, I thought I was watching a sick/disoriented
smelt or herring in its death throws. That turned out to be a half
truth. It was actually a squid working on a recent catch. It’s
unusual to see them at the surface in the daylight.

To ring in October, I peered over the ferry pier on the
Bremerton side to see my first big marine jelly smack! As I
watched, the flood tide propelled hundreds of moon jellies over,
under and around the man-made structures of the Bremerton ferry
docks and marina.

The animals are beautiful. They are nearly clear except for the
four leaf clover shaped reproductive organs at their center. The
characteristic jellyfish pulse is also gracefully mesmerizing.

An observant and curious boater took a great picture of a dense
smack of moon jellies at the Brownsville marina on August 11th of
this year. The image worked its way around UW Aquatic and Fisheries
Sciences department, and received several responses. One referred
to the recent (July, 2010) conference… Third International Jellyfish Blooms Symposium.

Our region’s own Jenny Purcell of Western Washington University
organized the first session listed on the conference page and
provided a session summary that really hits on the complexities of
jelly blooms.

Globally, blooms impact economies and the environments that
support them. Lots of factors can go into creating blooms,
including climate change, altered salinity and excess
nutrients/food. Murkier water and low oxygen can also favor jellies
over their fish competitors. Even manmade structures in the water
can create extra habitat for to support the jellyfish life cycle.
Fishing can also remove some of their predators and
competitors.

The life cycle of a jelly is a strange (though not uncommon)
combination of sexual and asexual reproduction and of planktonic
(floating in the water) and benthic (attached to a surface in the
water) forms. The jellies we see floating around are the adult male
or female medusa. The boys put their sperm into the water (like
many marine critters). The girls use the sperm to fertilize eggs
that they brood until the larvae are released into the water. The
larvae soon find a shaded place (that’s why man-made structures
come in handy) to settle and grow into a polyp – like a tiny
anemone. That polyp divides into a budding colony and each bud
breaks off to grow into a new medusa. You might check out the
Jelly Zone
for more about jellies.

Part of a smack of lion's mane
jellies (Cyanea capillata - red means don't touch!). There were
about 20 lion's manes on the beach at Friday Harbor on September
24th, 2010 with more washing in. Photo: Jeff Adams